Sunday, January 1, 2017

OFF THE WIRE
By Travis Allen
Beginning on Jan. 1, prostitution by minors will be legal in California. Yes, you read that right.
SB 1322 bars law enforcement from arresting sex workers who are
under the age of 18 for soliciting or engaging in prostitution, or
loitering with the intent to do so. So teenage girls (and boys) in
California will soon be free to have sex in exchange for money without
fear of arrest or prosecution.
This terribly destructive legislation was written and passed by
the progressive Democrats who control California's state government with
a two-thirds "supermajority." To their credit, they are sincere in
their belief that decriminalizing underage prostitution is good public
policy that will help victims of sex trafficking. Unfortunately, the
reality is that the legalization of underage prostitution suffers from
the fatal defect endemic to progressive-left policymaking: it ignores
experience, common sense and most of all human nature — especially its
darker side.
The unintended but predictable consequence of how the real
villains — pimps and other traffickers in human misery — will respond to
this new law isn't difficult to foresee. Pimping and pandering will
still be against the law whether it involves running adult women or
young girls. But legalizing child prostitution will only incentivize the
increased exploitation of underage girls. Immunity from arrest means
law enforcement can't interfere with minors engaging in prostitution —
which translates into bigger and better cash flow for the pimps. Simply
put, more time on the street and less time in jail means more money for
pimps, and more victims for them to exploit.

As Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley, a national
leader on human trafficking issues, told the media, "It just opens up
the door for traffickers to use these kids to commit crimes and exploit
them even worse." Another prosecutor insightfully observed that if
traffickers wrote legislation to protect themselves, it would read like
SB 1322.
Minors involved in prostitution are clearly victims, and
allowing our law enforcement officers to pick these minors up and get
them away from their pimps and into custody is a dramatically better
solution than making it legal for them to sell themselves for sex. That
only deepens their victimization and renders law enforcement powerless
to stop the cycle of abuse. SB 1322 is not simply misguided — its
consequences are immoral.
Unfortunately for Californians, SB 1322 isn't an outlier — it's
only the tip of the liberal iceberg. 2017 will see the Golden State
subjected to wave after wave of laws taking effect that are
well-intentioned but disastrous embodiments of progressive utopianism.
One such new Democratic-authored law throws open the door to
even greater government dependency on the part of the poor by rolling
back proven reforms. In 1996, welfare reform was one of the greatest
social legislation achievements of the last century, ending the lifetime
welfare system and putting millions of Americans on the road to
self-reliance and self-respect. In its wake, California lawmakers passed
a law barring increased payments to women who have more children while
still on welfare, in order to encourage women to achieve independence
before having more children.
It's a tough provision that works — which was apparently
irrelevant to Gov. Jerry Brown, who just signed a bill repealing that
prohibition. Henceforth, no matter how many children someone has while
on welfare, the state government will ratchet up payments with each
child, with no limit. Incredibly, the Democratic author of this bill
claims she wants to discourage women from having more children while on
welfare — but instead passed legislation replacing that effective reform
with a law that restarts the cycle of welfare dependency.
In similarly inverted fashion, state Democrats have taken action
to make California's youth unemployment rate — one of the nation's
highest — even worse by boosting the minimum wage. It is an empirical
fact that minimum-wage hikes increase unemployment among those who are
the least skilled and most in need of entry-level jobs — our youth. Like
other misguided liberal policies, this latest minimum-wage legislation
will only lead to fewer jobs for our youth.
And the list goes on. Thanks to other new Democratic-sponsored
bills, an estimated 50,000 felons will be voting in the next state
election, many from their jail cells; if you go hunting with a buddy and
lend him your shotgun, you'll be breaking the law; state employees will
be forbidden from traveling on business to states which prohibit
transgender bathrooms. The parade of inane and idiotic legislation in
California is virtually unending.
The common thread running through this avalanche of liberal-left
legislation is the total absence of common sense and a stubborn
insistence on ignoring human nature. On a certain level, we shouldn't be
surprised. After all, progressives still believe eliminating poverty is
a matter of spending enough money on enough government programs.
Despite spending $15 trillion on anti-poverty and welfare programs since
1965, our national poverty rate is actually slightly higher today than
it was then.
California is loaded with natural resources and talented people
who want to work hard, be successful and enjoy the fruits of that
success. The tragedy is that California is in the grip of liberal
politicians who believe we can help underage prostitutes by making it
legal for them to be prostitutes; who believe we can reduce welfare
dependence by increasing opportunities to become dependent; and who
think we can increase employment by making it more expensive to hire
people. California is ruled by a political party that places a higher
priority on dictating to public schools their mascot choices than
enabling parents to send their kids to the school of their choice.
Do Brown and the Democrat politicians behind this wave of bad
legislation mean well? I believe they do, but unfortunately they're only
succeeding in proving that the road to hell is paved with good
intentions. It's the bad luck of Californians that they're dragging the
rest of our state down that road with them.